Educators and others involved in measuring the skill, knowledge, intelligence, capacities and/or aptitudes of students and other individuals have long relied on typeset publication quality question-based documents as teaching aids. Such question-based documents are more commonly referred to as study guides. Study guides typically include questions, answers and worked out solutions and are usually typeset publication quality documents, as is the case with most educational textbooks. A variety of publishers, such as Barron's Educational Series, Inc. and Arco Publishing, Inc., typeset, print and distribute study guides throughout the world. This process is typically time consuming and costly to publishers.
Typesetting has become the standard for the publishing industry for a variety of reasons. For example, typesetting ensures that a line with large word spaces (due to justification) does not fall next to a line with small word spaces. Additionally, typesetting ensures that a page of text does not have too many hyphenated words. Likewise, typesetting kerns combinations of characters, such as “A” and “V”, so as to bring them closer together, thereby making them easier to read. Further, the typeset format replaces combinations of characters such as “fi” and “ff” with ligatures. Additionally, typesetting formats a page such that a heading, for example, will not commence near the bottom of a page. Similarly, typesetting permits a publisher to insert a standard amount of vertical space around headings, lists, etc. As a result, typeset documents appear more polished, professional and legible than non-typeset documents.
Teachers often rely on study guides for a variety of purposes. For example, a high school class may consist of thirty students who are required to take a standardized examination (e.g., the Advanced Placement Calculus Examination) at the end of the school year. To assist her students in their preparation for such examinations, the teacher provides her class with copies of a published study guide, which may include a questions manual and a solutions manual. In this example, the study guide includes 240 questions and an index which lists all of the questions organized by topic. The solutions manual includes an answer key and step-by-step worked out solutions for each of the questions.
During the course of the school year, the teacher may wish to assign homework questions from the study guide that relate to a particular topic. Thus, the teacher typically reviews the index in the study guide and assigns a set of homework questions to her students which relate to the particular topic. Accordingly, the students consult their copy of the study guide and complete the assigned questions.
In addition to assigning questions from the study guide as homework, the teacher may wish to make up a quiz which comprises questions from the study guide. In such cases, the teacher typically photocopies the questions from the study guide or retypes them. Additionally, the teacher may take similar steps in distributing answers and/or worked out solutions to the quiz. Disadvantageously, the teacher expends a great deal of time cutting and pasting (or retyping questions, answers and/or worked out solutions), thereby occupying time which could have otherwise been more productively spent (e.g., grading exams, preparing lesson plans, etc.)
To compound these problems, it is quite possible that the study guide contains errors. A teacher who discovers these errors may communicate them to the publisher of the study guide. The publisher, in turn, notes these errors and prints errata sheets, which are sent to the owners of the study guide. Additionally, the publisher may incorporate the corrections into the next version of the study guide. Thus, the process of correcting errors in a study guide is typically cumbersome, time consuming and costly to publishers.
In 1997, the applicant developed a process, known as Examinations Express, for producing tests which is not the subject of this application. This prior process connected a Disk Operating System (DOS) client to a DOS bulletin board system (BBS) server through the plain old telephone system (POTS). Although useful at the time, this process did not incorporate features of the system and method of the present invention as generally described supra in the “Field Of The Invention”, and did not dynamically generate typeset publication quality question-based documents in a portable document format pursuant to user specifications created by a user.
Additionally, others have implemented Internet-based “test-making” sites such as www.barronsregents.com. Although useful for certain purposes, these other web sites do not dynamically generate typeset publication quality question-based documents in a portable document format pursuant to specifications created by a user. Thus, these other web sites are not useful to those who wish to generate typeset publication quality question-based documents in a portable document format.
In this regard, these other Internet-based “test-making” web sites typically generate question-based documents which are in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), a known markup language for creating documents that will be displayed in web browsers. This markup language is significantly limited as compared with page description languages, e.g., PostScript®, which are utilized in professional typesetting systems. One commentator explained the shortcomings of the use of HTML for publication purposes as follows: “[f] or some applications, the methods employed to disseminate information across the World Wide Web are unacceptable. This is because they leave the rendering of the ‘page’ to the reader's software, not to the author's software. Even if pure HTML and Cascading Style Sheets are used, the author does not know where line breaks will occur, and, of course there is no concept of ‘page breaks.’ Graphics are often presented as low-resolution bitmaps with unreliable colors; table layout may be radically different. The author cannot even be sure which font will be seen by the reader, or whether some unsuitable symbols may be used in mathematics, for example. Finally, and perhaps most important, the current generation of Web browsers is not very sophisticated at typesetting and page makeup; the result of hitting the Print icon from a browser does not produce a high-quality result.” Michael Gossens, et. al., The Latex Web Companion, p.25 (1999).
Additionally, currently available encryption techniques for HTML files provide relatively low levels of security for a publisher's copyrights for catalogs of questions or dynamically generated question-based documents downloaded in this format.
While the prior art is of interest, the known methods and apparatus of the prior art present several limitations which the present invention seeks to overcome.
In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for dynamically generating typeset publication quality question-based documents in a portable document format pursuant to specifications created by a user.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method which enables a user to selectively copy questions, heading information, and/or entire contents of previously generated typeset question-based documents.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system and method which includes encryption techniques for portable document format files. Currently available encryption techniques for portable document format files provide relatively high levels of security for a publisher's copyrights for catalogs of questions or dynamically generated question-based documents downloaded in this format.
It is another object of the present invention to solve shortcomings of the prior art.
Further objects and advantages will become apparent from a consideration of the ensuing description and drawings.